Kelluu, a Finnish company that builds autonomous hydrogen-powered airships for surveillance and intelligence gathering, raised a €15m (about $17.6m) Series A round, announced on 14 April 2026. The NATO Innovation Fund led the round. It was the fund's first investment in a Finnish company.
Keen Venture Partners, Gungnir Capital and Tesi, a Finnish state-owned investment company, also invested, according to the NATO Innovation Fund and The Next Web. No valuation was disclosed.
Kelluu said it will use the money to improve its technology, scale operations and expand deployment of its airship fleet. The NATO Innovation Fund listed international expansion this year, development of AI capabilities and growing the team among the uses.
What Kelluu does
The company's airships are near-silent and emit no pollutants, using hydrogen for lift. Tech.eu said Kelluu runs the world's largest autonomous airship fleet. The NATO Innovation Fund said the airships can operate at temperatures as low as -33°C and through sustained interference with satellite navigation (GNSS jamming), carry several types of sensor including real-time high-resolution imagery, and fly missions of more than 12 hours.
The Next Web reported that five airships operating from one base can cover up to 30,000 square kilometres, and that the fleet has flown more than 50,000 km, including 12-hour Arctic missions. The NATO Innovation Fund said the company's data platform is designed to meet the STANAG standards and to integrate with allied command-and-control systems.
Military validation
Kelluu joined NATO's DIANA accelerator programme in 2024. It was one of 15 companies chosen from more than 2,600 applicants and completed two DIANA phases.
In February 2026, during Exercise Steadfast Dart 26 in Germany, Kelluu delivered live video and geolocation data to allied forces through an integration with the Maven Smart System, the NATO Innovation Fund said. It has also taken part in a demonstration at the NATO Innovation Range in Finland, exercises in Norway and work with NATO Maritime Command. The reports did not name any paying customers or give revenue.
Civilian uses and AI
Kelluu positions the system as dual use. Civilian applications include forestry monitoring, meteorology, smart-city sensing and the protection of critical infrastructure such as power grids. Tech.eu reported that part of the funding will go to Kelluu AI Labs, which is developing geospatial foundation models for the physical world and a data pipeline for the information the airships collect.
Chief executive Janne Hietala said, according to Tech.eu, that persistent aerial intelligence would become critical infrastructure, not just for defence. He also said the company was built at the edge of Europe, in one of the hardest operating environments outside conflict zones, according to the NATO Innovation Fund. The fund described Kelluu as built near the border between Finland and Russia.
What is not disclosed
The articles did not report Kelluu's total funding, earlier rounds, headcount, headquarters city or the names of its founders. Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky, a partner at the NATO Innovation Fund, said Kelluu offers NATO nations persistent wide-area monitoring in challenging environments, and that its platform provides consistent coverage when GPS is jammed or the weather is harsh.
Company website: kelluu.com